The Road Trip

What an adventurous 48 hours we’ve had! On Saturday morning, we left Aberdeen with Stacey and Wes for a road trip to Cairngorm mountain for a day of skiing. About 20 miles from home, we noticed something going a little awry.

G: Hey Wes, the slug sounds awesome! Have you had a sports exhaust installed?
Wes: No mate, but now that you mention it, he does sound a little louder than usual.
G: Oh. Maybe we should pull over and have a look at it?
Wes: Good idea mate… lets pull in next to that pub.

Sure enough, The Slug was having some exhaust issues – the exhaust pipe had seperated from the rear muffler. No wonder he was sounding so sporty! Wes called up The AA, then we all headed in to the pub for a burger and chips.

Lesson Number 1: If you ever find yourself broken down in Banchory, do not – I repeat, do not – try to find solace in a burger from The Burnett Arms hotel and restaurant. Their burgers must have been made from Grade F meat (ex-circus animals and old gym mats), which as you may have guessed was rather disgusting. I don’t know if they were surprised when they collected our plates and found that most of our patties hadn’t been touched; hopefully they’ll get the point!

Anyway, a young lad – who I’ll call Angus – eventually turned up on behalf of the AA, and jimmied up a few metal cable ties to hold the exhaust pipe in place. It was only a temporary fix, but he assured us it should hold in place for our journey to Aviemore and back. Sure enough, we made it without too much trouble (save for a bit of car-skiing up a hill on an icy road), and checked in to Cairngorm Lodge, a youth hostel not far out of town where Stacey and Wes had stayed before.

Lesson Number 2: Cairngorn Lodge should be used strictly for summer accommodation only! Sleeping in thermals and huddled under a doona, I was still quite cold all night. None of us slept particularly well, and consequently, getting up for our early start was no easy task. Somehow we managed to drag ourselves out of bed, head down to the kitchen for some Paw Ridge, and then get back on to the road.

We arrived up at Cairngorm mountain by about 8:30 AM, picked up our hire gear and lift tickets, then caught the funicular up to the top of the mountain. Not only was it freezing (-6 at the base) but visibility was horrendous – 10 metres at best. We spent the whole day skiing quite slowly down some very fresh powder and ungroomed runs, most of the time wondering where on earth we were supposed to be going! Ironically, the best run of the day was our last one, because the fog had finally lifted and we could actually see the snow. I tells ya, it makes a huge difference.

Completely exhausted (powder snow is such hard work!), we hopped back into The Slug for the three hour journey home. When we got down the mountain and into Aviemore, we all noticed a rather unfriendly sounding scraping noise coming from under the car. We pulled over at the information centre and got down to have a look, only to find that the entire exhaust pipe (that runs between the front and back muffler) was scraping on the road.

Lesson Number 3: Join the AA.

A dude showed up about an hour-and-a-half after we called him, and rigged up a much better temporary fix than what the first guy did. He also scolded Angus (who was contracted from a third party company by the AA, but not actually from the AA) for sending us on our merry way, rather than telling us to turn back and get the car fixed.

The new rig held for our entire journey back to Aberdeen. Admittedly, we got a few “looks” from passing motorists, clearly not impressed by our superior sounding exhaust system. I think they were just jealous.

We were very pleased to step back into Hotel Bramley, where we cooked up a massive Tomato and Chili pasta feast, then finally hit the sack just after midnight. Suffice to say, we all slept very, very well.